The Difference Between UCaaS and CPaaS: Determine Which Is Right for You
As enterprises near the end of a contract for their phone systems, it’s easy to see that options for connecting with customers and business partners have expanded exponentially. When it’s time to consider an upgrade, you’ll probably hear about unified communications as a service (UCaaS) and communications platform as a service (CPaaS).
Defining the Technologies: UCaaS is a set of communications tools ready and available through a cloud provider. There’s no initial investment, as all hardware, maintenance, and other costs are included in a monthly subscription tailored to your exact user needs. Some of the advantages of UCaaS include scalability, flexibility, and the wide range of communications tools that users can access through a single application. From videoconferencing to call forwarding and digital receptionist, enterprises value the features in UCaaS.
CPaaS, by contrast, offers the same features but is easily customizable through the use of application programming interfaces (APIs). The main difference between the two technologies is that CPaaS allows the enterprise to embed communications tools right into their existing platforms.
Which Is Right for Your Enterprise? Many IT professionals consider CPaaS to be an upgrade from UCaaS. While UCaaS is valuable for its convenience in offering the end user options in how they choose to interact with the company, CPaaS takes that convenience a step further. Customers not only have the choice in how they communicate, for instance, but they can also do it right from the ordering screen or the product description page, rather than clicking into a separate link.
Check out some of the ways you can use CPaaS in your organization:
- Offer web-based chat within an application
- Utilize two-step authentication via SMS to improve security
- Equip your contact center with call analytics
- Provide your marketing and sales teams with lead-tracking features
- Group texts and calls
- Speech-to-text for flexibility in data entry or email response
- Click-to-call
- Issue reminders for appointments or provide updates
While CPaaS involves a little work from your programmers, the work is done on top of virtualization solutions, abstracting most of the work that comes with adopting new communications features. This allows your company to tap into the latest technology available for interacting with customers with a high level of customization that tailors tools to your exact needs.
Determining the right communications upgrade for your enterprise is easier with a little guidance. Contact us at One Connect to learn more about the pros and cons of either a UCaas or a CPaaS approach, and which will best fit the needs of your organization.